Back in my childhood days, mom had to force me to have a taste of anything belonging to the yogurt food group – it was one of my pet peeves.

And then one day, I shift in to this new city with a new found friend: Phinks. She was (and still is) a tiny sweet girl as much in love with food as I am still. Sundays would be spent in experimenting with any recipe we could lay our hands on – while I’d concentrate more on the spaghetti, pilaf, biriyani kind of edibles, she would be busy with more of the maa ki dal, rajma chawal-ish Indian soul food side of life. She got me hooked to her lovely Punjabi home cooking, which was such a relief from the grimy, oily things I was used to (considering you tend to eat out a lot when you stay away from family).

One day I come back home from office to find her slurping away from a bowl of pink creamy concoction. Before I could ask what was it, she made me try one spoonful of it. And I was hooked! Imagine my surprise when she said it is yogurt (yikes!) with oodles of jam whipped into it…

From that day on, it was as if a floodgate has finally been opened. I pounced on yogurt like a cat to tuna. My all time favorite now is creamy yogurt spiced with cumin, coriander and paprika, with little pecks of cucumber, tomato and pineapple in it. You can have it anytime of the day, either as a dip or, like me, as a salad.

Creamy Yogurt Gently Spiced with Paprika & Coriander

Ingredients

1 jar fat thick free yogurt (500 ml). I use Nestle’s fat free pro-biotic as it is supposed to be good for digestion, and it is verrrrry creamy…

Couple of tablespoons of milk

1/2 a cucumber finely chopped

1 small tomato again finely chopped

1/2 a cup of cubed boil potatoes or a couple of rings of canned & strained pineapple, finely chopped (either of the 2, or both; also, these are optional)